Five Reasons Michael's Glad He Picked Carol
by She's a Star
Summary: Because what's so great about Jan, anyway? Michael spends some quality time with his good friend, Denial.


**Title:** Five Reasons Michael's Glad He Picked Carol  
**Pairing:** Michael/Carol, Michael/Denial, Michael/Jan  
**Spoilers:** Season 3, up to _Initiation_ (if you squint)  
**Rating:** PG  
**Word Count:** 2,113

05.

Jan can be bitchy. Michael doesn't want to offend anyone or anything, but that's just a fact. Especially lately – she waltzes into the office, this flurry of corporate fury and professionalism and really nice perfume, and immediately starts treating him like he killed her dog or something. Which is a really irrational attitude to have, thank you very much, because not only would he never kill a dog, but she doesn't really seem like the kind of person who would be all that good with pets anyway. They'd probably die. Or run away.

But – well – the point is, she treats him like he's done something really, really bad, and now he's going to get punished for the rest of eternity. He can't even say "good morning" or "you look nice" or "that blouse is just – with your eyes? – _wow_. Where did you – never mind, never mind, I'll just ask Dwight" without her looking at him like she's imagining killing him in some really horrible way. Which is, in his opinion, not very professional.

Carol's nice. Always. She laughs at everything he says and never (okay, almost never) gives him that look that people always seem to get when he's just messing around and they're taking things _way_ too seriously. Carol appreciates his sense of humour. Whenever he calls her, their conversations are short and cheerful and usually she has to go pick up her kids from soccer practice or go grocery shopping so she can't talk long, but occasionally they'll schedule dinner or a movie that they (both of them. Mutually) usually just don't have time to get around to. He gets that. Real estate's some crazy stuff. He's not getting in the way of that. No, sir.

Jan makes him call her every morning. And every evening. The conversations go on for pretty much ever without really being about anything, and ninety-five percent of the time, they end with her hanging up on him. She says that it's because Scranton is slipping behind and she has to ensure that he's being productive. He decides that she's probably just upset about him picking Carol – although really, she never seems _sad_. Just angry. Really angry. A little bit homicidal.

"I don't know why I bother with you, Michael," she says one morning and sighs in this longsuffering way, like he's worthless and she hates him but not even in a way where it's just because he rejected her for the love of another woman. It's just like she despises him . . . because. And Carol would never act like that. That's for sure.

04.

Carol's the kind of woman he always saw himself ending up with. Granted, she's not Catherine Zeta-Jones or anything, but Catherine Zeta-Jones isn't the kind of girl you settle down with, anyway. The Catherine Zeta-Joneses are good for clandestine office affairs and hot sex, but you don't marry them. That just ain't how it's done.

Carol's pretty and sweet and always smiling, and he bets that she bakes kickass chocolate chip cookies. She's never made any for him, specifically, but once he stopped by her house to say hi and she'd just finished up a batch of oatmeal raisin ones. He hadn't taken one when she'd offered, because eesh, oatmeal, but they'd still smelled pretty damn good.

Jan can't bake. He knows because he'd tried to get her to drive down to Scranton for the office Christmas party and she'd said no like twelve times, but that had been back when they were still together(ish) and it wasn't like he was gonna take no for an answer.

"Just . . . come on! It'll be fun! Bake some cookies or something. Get that Christmas spirit goin'."

"Believe me, Michael, you don't want me to bake anything."

"Sure I do!"

"No."

"Yeah, well, why not?"

And it turned out the last time she'd tried to bake something there had been this big catastrophe with fire and a kitchen mop, and it had actually been a pretty funny story, and he'd laughed and she'd laughed and then it had gotten sort of quiet before she said really fast that she was late for a meeting and hung up without even waiting for an answer.

And, well, a man needs cookies. That just goes without saying.

03.

Carol's got kids, which just so happens to be really cool and convenient, because Michael wants kids. And, well, this way, it doesn't take like nine months to get them, and he doesn't have to deal with crazy pregnancy hormones and stuff. If there's one thing he's learned from _Friends_ and _Sex and the City_, it's that pregnancy makes women weird. -er. Not to mention sort of fat.

And besides, he likes Carol's kids. He and Tommy have this whole great thing where he calls Tommy 'Tomàs' and Tommy calls him 'Miguel' and sometimes Michael will sing him the Zorro theme song, just to keep the whole Spanish thing goin'. The little girl's great too – kinda quiet, though, and Michael can never remember what the hell her name is. Ashley? He's pretty sure it's Ashley. Or maybe Norah.

So, yeah. Kids that come with the girlfriend. Pretty sweet deal.

It's just that they've got a pretty good relationship with Carol's ex, who gets them on most weekends and calls them every night before they go to sleep. It was a pretty mellow divorce, it sounds like – Carol still gets along really well with him. Sometimes they go out for coffee, which seems pretty damn weird to Michael, but he's not going to say anything because it's not his business (although he is absolutely seventy-five percent sure that that's going to end badly).

And, well, it's not like Tommy and . . . the girl will ever call _him_ 'Dad,' or anything – in fact, they'd gotten really confused the one time he'd suggested it, you know, just as an offhand for-future-reference thing. They've got a dad. He would have to be more like . . . cool Uncle Mike who just so happens to sleep with Mommy. Which is neat. He'd much rather be the cool uncle, anyway. Dads have to help with homework and deal with grounding and all the serious, depressing junk. Cool uncles can just . . . buy stuff. Like Tickle Me Elmo's. He wonders if kids are still into those. Maybe he'll have Dwight look into it.

He sort of wonders what it would be like to be Dad, though. To stay up all night trying to get the baby to stop crying; to have this little person who's got your eyes or your chin or your awesome sense of humor, or something; to love someone, just 'cause they're yours.

Jan wants kids, but she doesn't think she's ever going to get married again. Men are afraid of her; he remembers her sniffling it against his shoulder in the hotel room, the fabric of his shirt soaked through with her tears, and even though it's kinda true, he hadn't said so or anything. "Men are stupid," he'd said instead, "and you? Are amazing."

But the point is that Jan doesn't have kids, and Carol does, even if they aren't his. And it's a good thing. Yep. Definitely a good thing. Just . . . because.

So there.

02.

Carol's scared of spiders. One Saturday he goes over to her house and she makes the two of them lunch, and there's a spider on the ceiling and she totally freaks. She goes into the living room and refuses to go back into the kitchen until it's gone, and asks Michael to kill it. Michael totally would've, too – pshh, spider, no big deal – except that the ceiling was pretty high up and he didn't really feel like standing on a chair and besides, it was pretty big as far as spiders go. Probably poisonous. Anyway, he just waited until it crawled behind a cabinet, slammed a cookbook against the counter, and yelled to Carol that it was dead. It wasn't like she'd ever know the difference, anyway, and besides, he's not about to face a potentially fatal spider bite. He's not an idiot. And Carol had beamed and kissed him and teasingly called him her hero, and what's not to like about that?

Jan? She doesn't have easy little fears like probably poisonous spiders. Jan's scared that she wasted her life on work and Gould and now she's going to die alone and miserable and bitter and no one's ever going to care about her again because she's terrible at opening herself up enough to connect with people. Which is just like . . . _whoa_. Michael doesn't know what you're supposed to say to stuff like that, especially when it's _Jan_. She's all empowered and sexy and doesn't really seem like she has any feelings at all, except for the types of feelings where you hate fun and love . . . not fun.

And the thing is, sometimes now he pictures her sitting alone in an apartment that's sort of sleek and elegant like she is; the TV on, maybe; sitcom laugh tracks ringing out at stuff that really isn't all that funny; Chinese takeout on the coffee table, and the phone never ringing, and everything always just where you left it because no one else is there to move it around and misplace it.

It kind of freaks him out that he can see it so well. Jan probably really, really hates that he knows her deepest, darkest fear. Luckily, he's a nice guy, and he won't use it against her. He feels pretty bad for her, in fact, even if he, personally, can't really understand where she's coming from.

Michael isn't afraid of anything.

Well, maybe snakes.

01.

Carol likes him, and she doesn't keep it a big secret or anything, either. He can't really blame her, but still, it's pretty nice when out of the blue she just says things like "Michael, you're so hysterical" and "You look handsome today, Michael." It's not like he needs to hear it, because hi, he has a mirror, and . . . ears, but still. He's not gonna complain.

Jan says stuff like "Step away from me, Michael" and "Stop leaving me voicemails, Michael" and "You have the maturity of a six-year-old, Michael." She rolls her eyes pretty much twenty-four seven whenever he's around, and most of the time she winds up having to go outside for a cigarette. Whenever he asks how she is or says it's nice to see her, she stares at him in this way where – well, if he were a lesser man (like, say, Toby, or something), he'd be left feeling pretty damn bad about himself. Pretty worthless. Pretty much like he's an idiot for ever entertaining the idea that maybe someday the two of them could have something.

It's a good thing he's too strong to really care about what she thinks of him or whatever.

And, well, so what if she's nice to him sometimes? So what if she kissed him in an elevator on Valentine's Day – while, he might add, completely and totally one hundred percent sober? So what if she's got the most gorgeous smile he's ever seen, mostly because she spends so much time not smiling that when she does, it's kind of like this amazing gift where he gets to see _her_ for a few seconds underneath the scary corporate queen façade? Big effin' deal.

What it all comes down to is that Jan likes, for whatever reason, to act like she hates him, and, well, he's just not going to wait around for her to stop acting crazy. If she wants to hate him, fine. Let her hate him. He's got Carol.

And, okay, he doesn't exactly feel the same way about Carol that he does about Jan. He probably thinks about Jan more – and, okay, talks to Jan more, because of this whole two-phone-calls-a-day thing. But it's not like they're _in a relationship_. They had a thing. Sort of. And it was great. Sort of. But that's all definitely, definitely in the past, and whatever feelings might have been there sure aren't there anymore. At least not on his part. Most of the time. Kinda. Unless she wanted to start something up again, in which case, he thinks maybe he'd be okay with it.

But in the meantime, no can do. His life is a Jan-free zone, and he is totally, totally down with that. Jan never laughs at his Cosby impression, anyway.

Man, is he glad he picked Carol.


End file.
